


still smelling of fire lilies

by panthalassas



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 3 years post canon, Assassins & Hitmen, Badass Mai (Avatar), Childhood Friends, F/F, Fire Nation (Avatar), First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I Haven't Read the Comics, Mai (Avatar)-Centric, NOT background mailee, Not comics compliant, Past Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Past Relationship(s), i hate epithets and this is an epithet free zone, mailee nation now is the time!, no epithets, the only speaking roles are mai ty lee and a random dude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25723327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panthalassas/pseuds/panthalassas
Summary: After Mai's long-overdue breakup with Zuko, she's not quite sure what to do next. Good thing Ty Lee knows exactly what she needs: a seaside vacation.
Relationships: Azula & Mai & Ty Lee, Kyoshi Warriors & Ty Lee, Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 70





	still smelling of fire lilies

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I discovered Mailee and now I can't stop thinking about them.

Mai's breakup with Zuko has got to be the most boring breakup in the history of breakups. It's all very mutual, very "I don't love you and I'm not sure I ever did," very "this has been going on for far too long and the only reason it didn't end years earlier is we were both too afraid to move on," very "I guess we should stop talking for a few months and then maybe we can be friends," very "I definitely do still care about you and I'm grateful for all you've given me but now I need to let this go."

The Zuko of three years ago never could have done it. The Mai of three years ago? Mai doesn't know.

She walks away from Zuko's rooms with a bitter taste in her mouth and an expanding void in her chest. It was all true - she doesn't love Zuko like a boyfriend. Probably she used to, and it faded away silently, like the sun setting while you're inside a palace, and you look out and the sky's all dark. Maybe she's always loved him like a friend.

Mai's never been good at figuring out what and who she loves. Figuring out the way she loves is even more difficult.

The early morning light casts the palace in ivory tones, like it's made of slabs of light. Against it, Mai sticks out like a hawk in the sky.

She passes Zuko's portrait, the latest in a never-ending line. The portrait actually looks like him, and it twists at the void in her chest. She hurries past it.

Where's she going? Being the Fire Lord's girlfriend has swallowed up her life, and she's not sure how to fill it now. Maybe she should have broken up with Zuko at the end of the day, so she could go to sleep and start the process of blurring the memory with time.

She wanders to a balcony at the East wing of the palace to watch the sunrise. She's watched thousands of sunrises in her 19 years, so many that now they seem utterly ordinary, but somehow this one strikes her. Half the sun hovers over the horizon, fiery orange.

"Mai!" A very familiar voice, behind her. "Are you alright?" Ty Lee's voice never fails to lift her spirits, and it almost brings a smile to her face. That's another thing she regrets about her relationship with Zuko: the distance that's formed between her and her other friends, Ty Lee included. Maybe now she can fix that.

"Hi, Ty Lee." Mai tears herself away from the sunrise.

Ty Lee stands in the doorway, not in her Kyoshi Warrior getup, instead dressed in soft pastel pink, her hair down in shimmering deep brown waves. Looking at her makes Mai's heart ache for a simpler time, to go back to chasing each other around the gardens at the Royal Fire Nation Academy, Ty Lee's laughter filling the air.

"I broke up with Zuko this morning," Mai says, softly.

"Oh," Ty Lee replies. And then she's hugging Mai tight. "That's why your aura's so blue."

"Blue?" Mai collapses into Ty Lee's arms. She smells like fire lilies, and her hugs have always been so soft, softer than Zuko's, gentle and strong.

"Mm-hm." Ty Lee rubs her back, punching a couple chi points, and a cool feeling flows down Mai's back.

"You're off duty?"

"I'm on vacation. Two weeks." Then, Ty Lee perks up. "Hey! I've got an idea! I bet you've got more free time now. Let's go on vacation together! I've missed you!"

"That actually...sounds nice. Really nice." Two weeks with Ty Lee, two weeks away from the palace and its dull pressure on the void in her chest, two weeks to sort everything out.

Ty Lee squeezes her tight. "Come with me, and we'll get you all packed up."

* * *

"Why are you so sad about breaking up with Zuko?" Ty Lee asks, on the way to the cottage she's reserved. Somehow, Ty Lee's acquired an airship. "From what you've told me, it sounds like you've been wanting to for a long time."

Honestly? She's not sure. Mai leans on the edge of the basket. Clouds drift by just below them, wispy and gentle, far above the ocean. "Well, I lose my chance at Fire Lady."

Ty Lee flips upside down and kicks her legs up against the ropes. Her thinking position. "But why would you want to be Fire Lady? Isn't that just more of the paperwork you hate?"

"I...I suppose so. I've thought for so long that Fire Lady was my destiny."

"And now you feel kind of out of place."

Mai nods.

"Obsolete, maybe?"

Mai nods again. "It's like losing an extra arm. Like maybe I didn't need or want it in the first place, but I still don't know how to adjust to life without it." Ty Lee always does this, teases out Mai's feelings like untangling a ball of yarn.

"Because it's been part of who you are for so long."

"I guess my relationship with Zuko was bonafide proof I care about something after all." Mai twists her mouth. Proof she'd left behind her miserable and monotonous existence at her parents' beck and call.

"There's loads of things you care about," Ty Lee says, and flips up to standing. "Like me. Like your brother. Like not letting the Fire Nation get back how it used to be. Like not letting other girls face what happened to you. You could be a therapist."

Mai laughs. "Me, a therapist?" Then, she pauses. "But yeah, I do care about you. I care about you a lot." Through the agonizing months of prison, the sight of Ty Lee saving her life played in her head on repeat.

Ty Lee smiles. "I care about you a lot too."

* * *

At the cottage by the sea, they share a bed like they did as kids, without having to ask. It's worlds away from sharing with Zuko. Zuko was always too hot to the touch, where Ty Lee is cool and bright, curling around her instinctively, infinitely more responsive.

Sometime long before sunrise, Mai drifts awake wishing she could do this every night. Ty Lee's head rests on her shoulder, Ty Lee's arms around her waist. Fuck, Mai hasn't felt this perfectly comfortable since the last time they did this, probably in their final year of school, Ty Lee sneaking in through her window to pinky promise that they'd never abandon each other, that they'd be friends forever and ever.

Her chest burns and her eyes prick with the memory. It's an entirely different type of ache from the one Zuko left, a yearning ache, a longing for all the particular details of those nights, the smell of the night-blooming jasmine that covered the school walls in the summertime, the soft creak of the wooden floorboards, the shush of the fine linen sheets, the gentle yellow lamplight they shared in the absence of a firebender. Just the two of them.

And tonight, just the two of them, in this bed with the fresh sea scent and clear ocean breezes through the open window and Ty Lee, still smelling of fire lilies. And her, wearing one of Ty Lee's soft white nightshirts, all her armor and all her knives draped over the back of a chair across the room.

If only she could string all these moments together into a necklace to carry with her when she returns to the real world.

Mai shifts her arm over Ty Lee's and turns into her embrace. She'll have thirteen more nights like this. Enough for a whole pearl necklace, like the one her mother wore long long ago. Was that her mother's engagement necklace? Maybe? Mai yawns.

And then the wall explodes.

In an instant, the night flashes into fire, and the window cleaves away into the sea.

Ty Lee leaps into action before the impact sounds, surging out of the bed and into the fire. Mai lunges for her knives, and two slide like snakes into her hands, her heart pounding in her chest, ice shooting down her arms.

"Who's there?" She asks, knives at the ready.

A soft noise, flesh on flesh, and a man in armor collapses out of the flames. A second's work, and Mai pins him to the floor.

"Just him," Ty Lee says, emerging unscathed. The fire fades into dull red embers, casting Ty Lee's shadow on the bed.

"Why are you here?" Mai asks, in the same voice she used to stand up to Azula, the same voice she's used to question countless assassins. Being Zuko's girlfriend made her a lot of enemies.

The man sputters, and Ty Lee puts her foot on his chest. Something twinges deep in Mai's stomach.

"Why are you here?" Mai repeats, lower now, the terror fading.

"Lady Mai?"

Mai nods, once.

"We saw you coming."

"Zuko isn't here."

"We know."

"You know we broke up? You can stop trying to kill me now." Mai reaches down and yanks off his helmet. He's just some guy, no one she recognizes, cringing in terror. She tosses the helmet out the smoldering hole in the wall.

"They aren't just trying to kill you because you were Zuko's girlfriend," Ty Lee says. She removes her foot from the man's chest. "Isn't that right?"

The man nods, eyes wide.

Ty Lee grins. "Mai really scares you, doesn't she?"

Mai smirks. She's missed this feeling, her and Ty Lee working together like a well-oiled machine, confident and capable. Taking out assassins with Zuko just wasn't the same.

"Lady Mai is a traitor!"

"Ha-ha, very funny. You're the one who's trying to kill the Fire Lord." Mai collects her knives, and Ty Lee heaves the man out the hole where the window used to be. Mai's flattered to know assassins are coming just for her. She's gotten so used to the importance of her relationship with Zuko, and she hadn't realized how much it had seeped into her brain. Cutting ties with him is starting to feel like a weight off her back, like sealing up a wound that's bled for so long she stopped thinking about it. She doesn't have to worry about how late his meetings will go anymore, how upset a reminder of his father might make him.

After a couple seconds, a splash echoes up from the ocean.

"I hope he can swim!" Ty Lee grins. "Do you mind the hole in the wall?"

"Uh, not really." Mai smiles, leaning against the wall. "I don't think he can swim while he's chi-blocked." She reorders her knives, checking for scratches.

"I'm sure he'll figure something out!" Ty Lee shrugs, settling down cross-legged on the bed. "It's funny how this is kind of a normal night for both of us now."

"Yeah. Can't count the times Zuko and I almost got assassinated. We took turns fighting them off." The thought evokes a weird nostalgia for all the times she startled awake to Zuko's fire splitting the night, all the times she woke him up by leaping over him with a knife.

"I think it's more fun to do it together!"

"Fun?" Though, actually, it was kind of fun.

"Here's your problem: you've started to see fighting assassins as a routine chore instead of an opportunity to be creative!" Ty Lee leans back into a handstand, then springs off the bed to stand in front of Mai. "But your aura's looking better now! More of a lavender."

Mai raises an eyebrow. She's never been sure what to make of Ty Lee's aura reading - it's usually startlingly accurate, but she's a skeptic at heart.

Ty Lee leans forward, her wide gray eyes catching the last of the dying fire, a few strands of hair across her face. Mai pulls them aside for her, her fingertips brushing over Ty Lee's cheek.

"I'm glad I could help you," Ty Lee says.

"It's good to get out of the palace." Mai twists Ty Lee's hair back. It's silky soft, and Mai could spend hours combing through it. "Thanks for taking me along."

"Of course!" Ty Lee hugs her, spreading warmth through Mai's whole body. "I care about you. And I'm never ever ever going to stop caring."

Mai leans into her, and they stay like that for a while, the wind rushing through the hole in the wall, seabirds calling outside. In the background, the waves lap at the shore. Ty Lee smells a little like smoke, now, mixed with the fire lilies.

"I missed you so much," Ty Lee says, pressing her face into Mai's shoulder.

Maybe that's a chi point too, because it feels like Ty Lee's peeled back a veil Mai didn't even know was there. Ty Lee, the shaft of light cutting through her life. How did she not see it before?

"I love you," Mai replies.

Ty Lee squeezes her closer. "I've loved you since school." She laughs. "When I caught you throwing knives in the back of the library."

Mai smiles. "I remember that." Ty Lee snuck out from behind the bookcase, eyes bright, with a mischievous grin. That was the first time they played together without Azula.

"It hurt to watch you with Zuko for so long." Ty Lee's voice breaks, and Mai's chest feels hollow and her throat tight. "Because I used to think we were meant for each other. That we'd end up together no matter how long it took."

"Used to?"

"I stopped. When I saw how happy you looked with him after the war." Ty Lee steps back and touches Mai's face. "Because I wanted you to be happy, whether it was me making you happy or not."

"It took me way too long to realize, but you make me the happiest," Mai says softly. "You're like no one else I've ever known."

"Thank you!" Ty Lee smiles her room-lighting smile. "Now I'm kind of starting to think we were meant for each other after all."

Mai laughs. "Maybe." It's the sappiest thing she's ever agreed to, but it's for Ty Lee.

"Hey! Got you to smile!" Ty Lee runs her fingers through Mai's hair, and Mai leans into the touch. "And got your aura to turn pink!"

"Just kiss me already," Mai mutters, but she can't hide her blush, can't help but keep smiling.

"Okayyy, if you're so excited about it." Ty Lee pauses. "Also, your assassin interrogating voice? Totally hot."

"Thanks?"

Ty Lee's an excellent kisser. Mai's not surprised.

* * *

The next night, after a long day at the beach, once the stars come out, Mai and Ty Lee curl together in bed again to watch the moon rise through the hole in the wall.

"I admire you," Mai says. "You've found your calling. Figured out what you want to do with your life."

"I haven't, actually. The Kyoshi Warriors is a for-now kind of thing. I have something to teach them, and they have something to teach me. I don't really know what I'll do next, and that's okay. Sometimes, you just have to take what comes." Ty Lee shifts and props herself up on an elbow. "Do you want to be a Kyoshi Warrior?"

"And guard my ex? No thanks." Mai laughs, low and genuine, stretching out on the bed. The look on Zuko's face would be pretty funny, though.

"Okay, how about this: you lead a group of Kyoshi Warriors to take out Ozai's loyalists." Ty Lee smiles.

"Well, I have one hell of a cover story. The Fire Lord's jilted ex, out for blood, cheated of her shot at Fire Lady, with Azula's right hand woman at her side." More days like last night. More time with Ty Lee. And, maybe best of all, a meaningful goal, something to strive for, a way to change things.

"I'd love to be at your side." Ty Lee leans forward and kisses Mai's forehead, and she can't help but smile. "But I was never Azula's right hand woman." She pauses. "I was yours."

And what Mai feels then washes away every doubt she's ever had about whether she cares.


End file.
